Friday 11 January 2013

Meal planning and healthy eating

I'm now into day 5 of my healthy eating plan its not going too badly and hope to see results sometime in the near future.
January is always a really tough month in the nto household added to a difficult December it can be downright miserable.
Self employment means you have no control over when money comes in and we are struggling with an extreme lack of it.This recession is really starting to drag me down.We have struggled for 4 years now.Don't get me wrong its not all been bad.If the recession hadn't hit us we would still be living way above our means.
Debts wouldn't have been paid off but if any of you have ever added your yearly expenditure up ,you need a lot of money coming in just to cover basics.For example £1460 just for council tax a year.£1140 just for insurance for 2 vehicles .£ 3640 groceries (£70 a week) I know this is what i am aiming to reduce this year but your getting my drift we are up to £6240 just on these 3 items.So OH bringing in £20 in the last 2 weeks doesn't go along way in covering expenditure.

I have now used some of my whiteboard paper to draw up a meal planner.


Don't think my husband is too chuffed at seeing what he is eating for the next week and a  few faces were pulled.Wait until he sees the following weeks when more egg and vegetarian dishes are included.One thing about my OH is he doesn't get why i do this and how difficult it is to be frugal and reduce outgoings after 4 years of recession and 2 years of trying to sort things out hes still not on board and wont discuss money.

Visited baby yesterday she is Devinne ,she has put on over a lb in 3 weeks.
DD is struggling with her revision and has her 1st exam today.I'm still struggling internally with her being back with ex but im now trying to keep quite.She booked a girly holiday earlier in the week.Her boyfriend wasn't happy and reacted exactly as i expected him too.But at least she has done it.

nto
x

6 comments:

  1. I'm like you trying to be careful with money. If I
    get away with £100 a week for food shopping I'm
    doing well. But this year already my car has gone in the garage twice. My sons at that teenage growing stage so there has already been new shoes for school. And today his backpack has broken!
    Never mind it can only get better...
    Rosezeeta

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yor Hubby sounds VERY like my ex. He was also self employed (a window cleaner) and his work dwindled a lot in Winter because of the weather and then latterly becauise of sheer laziness.

    I remember a huge row once when he said I was 'belittling him in the eyes of his children' by menu planning.

    We literally had just enough food to see us through the week and NO money. So I had arranged what we did have in clusters in the cupboard so I could see exactly what we had and how many meals could be made from it and I put a note on the biscuit tin asking for them to be left alone (I had mentally rationed them to two each for the boys each night to go with their bedtime drink). He REALLY kicked off!!

    Maybe if you alternate the veggie meals with the meat ones it will make things seem a bit better for him, or sneak small bits of the various meats you are using and make pies, if you tell him it is Meat and Potato pie for instance he won't realise that the meat contained in it is just a teeny tiny bit, especially if you make the gravy that you mix the potatoes and meat in before popping into the pie nice and dark and meaty (Bisto granules work a treat for pie filling when made up really thickly)and then you can pour more over the top at the table (Bisto is actually vegetarian too).

    I hope things pick up for you and in the meantime if there's anything I can do to help let me know.

    Sue xx

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's a shame that your OH hasn't 'bought into' the meal planning - it's the only way to really control the household budget. I quietly introduced one to our house last year and it also seemed to make shopping that bit easier. Jx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well done on your planning. You stick with it.
    Patricia x

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow, your car insurance is expensive! I've been doing menu planning for the past year or so, ans it really does help me to save some green. We have vegetarian meals at least twice a week :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. My OH is like yours and will not even consider meal planning. We would be so much better off if he would give me the shopping budget and let me use the extra unnecessary amount he spends on clearing some of our debt. However he sees it as his money and therefore his choice and refuses to enter into any discussions about being frugal. He also has to have meat with every meal, which I really don't understand.

    Glad to hear dgd is getting along so well.

    Granny x

    ReplyDelete